


Solitude

by FracturedSpine



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, No pairings - Freeform, Tag der Toten
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23379382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FracturedSpine/pseuds/FracturedSpine
Summary: Samantha Maxis and Ultimis Richtofen come to terms with Primis Nikolai's plan to end the cycle.Set around Tag der Toten.
Kudos: 20





	Solitude

It was dark when she found him.

He sat alone on a fallen tree, his cap in his hands, staring at the silver eagle pinned to it. 

How distant that world now felt to him. 

But he wasn’t sure if he missed it. 

His gaze averted to the thin wisps of browning grass struggling to grow on the damp forest floor. 

All around him was decay, he had realised. Whilst there were no untoten, still things continued to die and to rot, like the very tree he was sat on. It felt wet to the touch and orange fungi grew on it, decomposing it.

It was an endless circle of life and death and he felt as if he was caught in the middle of it. 

He looked up at the young girl and she was holding hands with the boy, the younger version of himself. 

He refused to look at him. 

Instead he watched Samantha, she looked so different now. Her hair was disheveled in a way that Maxis never would have approved of and gone was her childish ignorance that he had once found so infuriating. 

“Why are you all alone, Edward?” 

And gone was her demonic voice too, once tinged with a horrifying anger. 

But yet still she did not act like a child. 

They had stripped that from her. 

He looked into her hazel eyes and found no hatred, only a naive look of worry. 

“I just wanted to be somewhere quiet.” His voice sounded weaker than he had intended. “Why are you not with Nikolai?”

She tried to move closer, but Eddie held her back, squeezing her hand tightly in alarm. 

“I am not a child anymore.”

He nodded and replaced the cap on his head.

For a moment, they remained unmoving in silence. It was odd, he thought, that they had spent so long trying to destroy one another, but yet here they both stood, not in hatred, but in understanding. 

How things had changed. 

“Do you miss being in the MPD, Edward?”

The suddenness of the question shocked him and he found himself looking at his hands. Yes, he missed the MPD. He missed the power he had felt surging through his veins. The omnipotence. The immortality. How the Earth was finally his. He yearned for it, no ached for it. He would give whatever left there was to give in order to return to that device. 

But as he looked up at the two children standing before him, how was he to tell them that? To tell them that he still craved such destruction. 

Yet he could not lie to them either. Ironically, he didn’t have the heart. 

“Why do you ask?”

So he did what he did best and quickly changed the subject, hoping desperately that she would not notice his refusal to answer such a question. 

But she was smarter than those three drugged test subjects. She knew what his denial meant. 

So she continued. 

“What would you have done if you had won, Edward?”

He had spent hours, no, days, months, years thinking about that. How he would lead Germany to victory and rule the world. The control and power he would have, people bowing before him in righteous admiration … it made him giddy just to think about it and he found himself grinning.

Then he looked back at the girl and his thoughts vanished.

He saw the innocence in her eyes, but still he knew that she had read his thoughts… and they scared her.

So they remained there, nothing said between them. 

Samantha found herself questioning her memories of this man before him. 

She wondered if he would have been any different without the corruption of the aether. 

“Do you forgive me, Samantha?”

She stared at him in more curiosity than shock. Why was he to ask such a question? 

She wondered if he meant it, or if it was just empty words. 

She tried to read his expression, something that had always been difficult, but was made even harder with the darkness lurking within him. 

And then she felt Eddie gently squeeze her hand and she briefly looked at him. 

His eyes were full of fear and Samantha pulled him closer. 

“It is not only me you should be seeking forgiveness from.” Her words were harsh, perhaps harsher than she had intended. “Forgiveness is earned, Edward.” 

He swallowed, nervously fiddling with his shirt collar. 

“I see.” 

His expression seemed to shift, growing slightly manic and suddenly she was afraid. She stepped away from him, worried about what he might do, what he might say.

But yet he said nothing.

He looked as though he was in turmoil, unable to voice what was on his mind. 

And suddenly she wondered...

“Did Nikolai tell you-”

He glared at her. Something sinister rising up and out of him.

“Why, who else do you think he would get to fulfill such a plan?” He snapped. 

He laughed then, a laugh laced with his own insanity. 

He saw the boy flinch. 

The other Edward had tried so hard to prevent this version of himself, but yet here he sat. 

Despite his sudden show of madness, she stepped forwards. Reaching out and holding his gloved hand. They felt gigantic in her childish fingers. 

“I don’t want to do this, Samantha.” He admitted, looking at her. 

And for a moment she forgot where she was. His expression looked different, his voice sounded different. Devoid of the corruption, like it had before all of this had begun. 

“I don’t want to do it either, Uncle Edward.” She uttered. But in the corner of her eye, she could see young Eddie growing tense. 

Edward watched in the corner of his eye as the boy whispered something to Samantha.

He made a growl of irritation at the child’s cowardice.

“Uncle Edward, Eddie says he’s scared.”

For a brief moment he looked the child in the eye, his younger self.

A part of him that he had denied acknowledging. All he saw was innocence, something that he had not felt in a very long time. 

It ashamed him.

He looked away. 

“Oh.” 

Samantha seemed to notice his reaction, but remained silent out of pity. 

The man got to his feet and straightened his uniform, before crouching down to the boy’s height. 

He knew the boy was afraid of him, something he deeply regretted. Trust, like forgiveness, was earned. He had failed in gaining both.

“This will soon be over.” His statement was not comforting, that much he knew. But it was the truth. 

The boy nodded, but whether it was out of fear or agreement, Edward could not tell. 

“Come now, let’s find the others.”

And they walked back towards the campfire, hand in hand.


End file.
